


Gabriel knew it wasn't Dirt

by insominia



Series: Freckles and Dirt [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Minor Castiel/Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 17:24:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17471783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insominia/pseuds/insominia
Summary: "There are words on Sam's foot," Castiel frowned, "but I am unsure of their meaning."Sam himself was late to discover his own soul mark, writing it off as dirt or a smudge, just as everyone else had. Besides, demigod tricksters' don't have souls right? And even if demigod tricksters did then archangels didn't...right?





	Gabriel knew it wasn't Dirt

**Author's Note:**

> After I wrote 'Castiel thought they were Freckles' Charly-P asked for the Sabriel side, and then this happened...
> 
> For you Charly-P :D

It was with a heavy sigh that Mary Winchester lay baby Sam in his crib that night.

He was six months old.

_Six months._

He could just about roll from his back to his front and even that was a recent development, so how could he possibly have gotten so filthy? She'd bathed him and gotten him clean enough. There was a smudge on his foot that hadn't come off no matter how hard she scrubbed and honestly, she really didn't care; she was tired and once Sam was down she was going to bed herself.

  
Several hours later, after the fire brigade had doused the blaze and left the Winchester's house a smouldering wreck, paramedics checked over the survivors. The baby, Sam, huddled in his brother's arms, was fine and the dark mark on his foot was put down to the smut of the fire.

* * *

 

John Winchester had never spoken about soul-marks. Sam wondered whether his parents had been soulmates, it would make sense given how hellbent John was on revenge. But Sam didn't have a mark and neither did Dean, so maybe their parents hadn't either. There were probably people who would study such a thing given how he didn't know of anyone else who didn't have a mark. It made dating difficult, there were plenty of people who weren't interested in getting off with someone they knew they were only going to break up with, not that Dean seemed to have that problem.

Then there'd been Jess. He would have married her, he would have spent the rest of his life with her, her own soul mark simply read, ' _hi_ ,' which was so beautifully generic it might well have been the first words Sam said to her. She believed they were and they would have been so very happy together, whether her words were written on his skin or not.

Or they would have been until those dreams went up in smoke.

Literally. 

Dean had all but wrestled Sam from that second fire and when the paramedics checked him over, nobody had looked at his feet. There had been no need, he hadn't even gotten as far as taking off his shoes.

* * *

 

There was a splinter in his foot, which had Dean doubled over. The vampires had put up a fight and both of them had gotten knocked around pretty hard. But it was back in the motel, over something as innocuous as a floorboard that Sam grabbed his foot and yelped, limping to the bathroom to remove it. He rinsed it under the lukewarm water and pulled the obviously visible wood from his skin, patting it dry with a towel.

He frowned, there was dirt on his foot, not really surprising given everything else he'd waded through today. But it didn't come away when he wiped it. Somewhere within him, there was some recognition that his right foot always seemed to be dirty and he tried to angle himself so he could get a good look, ignoring the protest from his knees.

Sam's stomach felt as though it had fallen through the floor, his heart started beating so loudly he wondered that Dean hadn't burst through the door to find out what was wrong.

It wasn't dirt at all.

It was writing in a black script so thin and elegant it was a struggle to make out the individual letters.

_'I've been mopping this floor for six years.'_

* * *

 

Monsters were gross. Dean hated witches, but Sam hated the monsters. Specifically, the ones that required a real hands-on approach to dispatch, the ones that would leave them covered in blood at the very least. This job was so unsanitary he thought as he stripped off and left his clothes, or what had been his clothes at least, in a pile on the doorstep with Dean's. They'd burn them later.

He'd showered, showered again and then given himself a third rinse just to make sure the remains of well...whatever it had been, were long gone. Dean had taken care of the clothes while Sam washed his hair, _again_ , and he emerged from the bathroom clean and soft in fresh flannel, throwing himself down on clean sheets, or at least as clean as this motel might have.

" _That_ ," Dean groaned, stepping back into the room, "was the most disgusting thing I think we've ever done." He handed a beer over to his brother and gestured to Sam's foot, "got some dirt there."

* * *

 

He didn't tell Dean and had no intention of ever telling Dean.

It had been weird enough to know that they were rare enough to have had no soul mark, but to tell his brother that he was weirder still to be alone? He wouldn't do that. Sam could well imagine how badly he would take it if he were on the receiving end of the news and Dean didn't deal with stuff well. So he let his brother carry on believing that it was the two of them that had no soul mark, that it would just be the two of them and Baby until the word ran out of monsters and he told himself it was to protect Dean. 

Sometimes, in the pale glow of the moonlight, staring at the walls (he never stared at the ceiling) Sam would force down the hope that welled within him that there was someone out there for him, some unknown person with Sam's neat writing curling around their skin. He wondered what it said. After the hope came the guilt, the guilt at the relief that Jess hadn't been his, not really, and he might have a shot of happiness with someone after all.

* * *

 

The janitor showed them to the professor's room. He was nice, Sam thought, friendlier than most of the people they met in this line of work. Dean had taken the lead, chatting to him up the stairs while Sam hung back, scanning for EMF when the guy wasn't looking. They got to the professor's room when Sam asked, "so how long you been working here?"

"I've been mopping this floor for six years," the guy said, opening the door for them. Sam glanced down to check the EMF reading, but just like the rest of the place, this room was clean. The janitor told them about the professor and his proclivities, sounded a lot like a ghost, but still no EMF. Then things got really weird, and if Bobby hadn't shown up when he did the Winchester brothers would have been found in their motel, their hands at each other's throats.

But they made up, killed the trickster and got the hell out of Dodge before anyone found the body.

* * *

 

It had been two weeks and four days since the case and now they were out on the road again, following word of cattle mutilations and a string of bloody murders an hour away. Sam looked around the office, the latest victim had been successful, maybe too successful - the local law was thinking it was a jealous competitor. Dean had taken statements from everyone who mattered, everyone who worked with the guy and had seen him before his head decided to remove itself from the rest of his body.

There was a woman in the corner with a tea trolley, a tall kettle steaming away, waiting to pour him a fresh cup of coffee. He took it gratefully and smiled at her, she hadn't been there the night of the murder, nor did she know the guy particularly well, she just made her rounds with the coffee. So Sam made small talk and after assuring her the coffee was great asked, "so how long you been working here?"

"Me? Oh I dunno, maybe about-"

But Sam didn't hear her reply. He froze, his eyes glazing over as words came back to him,

_"I've been mopping this floor for six years."_

Later Dean asked him if he was alright, he'd been quiet, _real_ quiet, according to his brother but Sam had just nodded, trying his best to plaster a smile on his face. Dean had shrugged and turned his attention back to the road; he was probably just embarrassed about the mess he'd made earlier dropping that coffee.

* * *

 

It was a mistake. It had to be a mistake. For a start, the trickster was a demigod, they didn't have soul mates right? They couldn't have. Did they even have souls? Could a human be matched with something that wasn't human? Besides, they'd killed the trickster and Sam hadn't felt anything. If that was his soul mate surely he'd have felt something? There'd have been some deep feeling within him, he'd be able to sense it right?

Sam started to read up on soul mates when Dean wasn't around, even though it was hardly an exact science. But there was nothing on soul mates that weren't human - how could there be? There wasn't anything on phantom pains when your soul mate died either, but still...

Sam closed the laptop in a huff and tried to level his breathing. The words were still there, but it was a coincidence, just a coincidence that was all. The trickster couldn't have possibly been his soul mate, he just happened to have been a guy who mopped floors, for six years and if he'd taken Sam's breath away with just a look that was surely just because Sam wasn't as straight as Dean thought he was.

That was what he told himself. If he told himself the lie every time he looked at his foot, maybe one day he would believe it.

* * *

 

Even when he had thought the trickster was his soulmate he hadn't obsessed over him as much. When he realised that he wasn't dead he thought he might be happy, or feel something, but he had seen Dean die too many times to feel anything but numb when he thought of the man. He wanted to hate him, but he couldn't. It must have been the mark, how else could he not want the man who killed his brother to die? How could he not bring himself to be angry with him? He just wanted Dean back.

The rest he would deal with later.

He said he wanted to teach Sam a lesson, it seemed like it had been a lot of effort to go to, even for a demigod.

In the end, all he'd had to do was say, 'please.' The trickster couldn't meet his eyes for a moment, but it wasn't until later after he'd held Dean after he'd sobbed the seemingly endless story out to his brother, that he allowed himself to think that the trickster must have cared for him on some level after all.

* * *

 

Turns out there was a ritual to summon a demigod, and the spell even claimed it could summon the most powerful of them, that must include the trickster, right? It didn't require a gallon of blood either, just some rare ingredients and a rather tricky incantation.

Dean had gone out with Cas, the first time Sam had gotten some time alone for a long time. It was nice to not have to sneak about the place with his stash of obscure components that could be used for nothing else but witchcraft. Knowing he wouldn't be followed, Sam ducked out and found himself a nice clearing where he followed the instructions to the letter. It would be easier if he knew the trickster's name, but 'trickster' would have to suffice.

The wind rustled the trees and almost blew out the flame in the bowl at Sam's feet. He shifted on the spot, it should have worked by now. Ignoring the pit forming in his stomach, Sam waited. He knew it had failed, but still, he waited. He waited until the fire had gone out and the ash-strewn remains had gotten lost on the wind.

It hadn't worked, but there must have been a reason. He must not have said the incantation correctly, or maybe he hadn't weighed the ingredients properly? Not even a demigod could ignore a summons specific to them.

Sam went back to the motel and lay on the bed, staring at the walls, wishing he could just talk to the guy. For now, he would be happy to talk.

* * *

 

" _Gabriel? The archangel_?"

It was a good thing Dean was talking because Sam was reeling. He was staring at the trickster- _no_ the angel- _no_! The _archangel_ , unable to catch his breath, though he couldn't place why. There were several reasons running around his head - they'd trapped an archangel, an archangel was his soul mate, his soul mate wanted him to say yes to Lucifer, this explained why the summoning spell didn't work at least, wait can angels have soul mates? How was he the most beautiful creature Sam had ever seen, even while he was trapped in holy fire? Why wouldn't he help them avert the apocalypse?

He never got the chance to ask any of them aloud, though from the way Gabriel was looking at him maybe he'd heard them anyway. On the way out Dean had flicked the sprinklers on and in a way Sam was disappointed; he was hoping to have an excuse to sneak back later.

* * *

 

"Hey, Cas? Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Do angels have soul mates?"

Castiel looked as though Sam might have murdered several small and fluffy animals in front of him, his face turning instantly to something between shock and horror as he stumbled over the words, "Sam, when I said that Dean and I had a more profound bond, it wasn't- I wasn't-"

"I just mean generally," Sam said, quickly, managing to contain his eye roll. He'd given up trying to make Dean and Cas realise that even if they weren't "soul mates", they were the soul mate they'd chosen for themselves. "Not...specifically, just generally, can angels have soul mates, or is it just a human thing?"

Cas seemed to think it over for a long time before he answered. So long in fact that Sam wondered whether the question had broken him; the angel just sat there, staring with his head cocked, before he finally said, "it is just a human thing."

Sam felt his heart sink, or rather plummet.

"But angels who take long term vessels, who spend more time on earth than in heaven, who live in human form, yes they are known to have soul mates."

"Oh."

His heart rose again and warmth, as he had never known, bloomed in Sam's chest. He dropped down into the chair opposite Cas, he hadn't even tried to hide his reaction but he could rely on the fact that Castiel was really bad at reading humans and wouldn't notice. He judged correctly, Cas didn't react to Sam at all, accepting his explanation that it was just a general question. "Do you...do you have a soulmate, Cas?" Sam asked lightly, the thought striking him, suddenly.

Castiel shuffled in the chair, uncomfortably, "I thought I did," he muttered, "but... it doesn't matter," he rose, suddenly and for little reason. Sam didn't pursue it, not even when Cas called over a little while later, "your brother and you don't have soul marks do you?"

* * *

 

Sometimes he dreamt of him. Most of the time Gabriel was human, sometimes he was not.

Those were the dreams Sam looked forward to the most.

Those were the nights where he would feel strong arms around him, wrapped around his chest, holding him tight as though he were too precious a thing to let go. There were wings in these dreams, he could never see them but he felt their softness, heard them flutter around him. He knew it was Gabriel even if he could never see him. Even like this, he could sense the playful smirk on his lips.

They were only dreams, he knew, but when he woke up he usually felt safer and warmer than he ever had in his life. One time he woke and swore he'd heard feathers on the wind, but he knew really that he was just hoping.

 

* * *

 

Gabriel was there and he wasn't there for Kali. That's what he had said, but Sam knew it was a lie. It had to be, if he was there for Kali why was he showing so much interest in getting the Winchesters out, looming apocalypse notwithstanding? Or maybe that was something that Sam was telling himself to soothe the sudden flash of jealousy that tore through him when he saw Gabriel with the goddess.

Seeing her, practically draped over him, was enough to make Sam want to gank her there and then, were the room not filled with beings far more powerful than most of what they hunted put together. Not to mention he wouldn't get close to Kali herself before she obliterated him. But he would try, for Gabriel's sake.

Or he would have had she not drawn the archangel blade and plunged it into his chest. Sam had seen Gabriel die before, as the trickster, but that was a whole different world from seeing his grace flash from his face and the empty vessel slump into the chair, lifeless. Yet, Sam felt nothing. Again he found himself thinking, as Dean paced the room and cussed the crowd out, while also agreeing to help, that if Gabriel were dead, he would surely feel it on some deeper level than just shock at what he had seen.

When Dean told them later that Gabriel wasn't dead, he found he wasn't surprised. He wasn't even particularly relieved, he'd known, on some level he had known that would be the case. Not that he had time to ponder it. Lucifer was standing over them and the so-called Gods had fallen before him. Gabriel was with them, passing something to Dean, telling them to guard it with their lives. Then, he was facing down Lucifer, " _Lucy, I'm home_."

He covered for them while they grabbed Kali and ran. Sam never knew what went down in that room, but he could guess. Dean said Lucifer must have killed Gabriel, and on the surface, Sam agreed, but it didn't feel right. So far every time Sam had thought him dead, he'd gotten away and so night times found him beside his bed, head in his hands, praying to Gabriel, praying that he could hear him.

* * *

 

No matter what happened, Sam would pray. Even after everything, when he was too tired to pray, when all he wanted to do was curl into a ball, sleep for a hundred years and call it a nap, Sam Winchester prayed.

Lucifer had known. In the cage he had tormented Sam with Gabriel, Sam now knew the angel's last moments so well he could count Gabriel's eyelashes from memory alone. It was one of the number of tortures Lucifer had rained upon him.

After the apocalypse, after the cage, he still prayed.

He wasn't sure when the dreams began, nightmares of Gabriel's wings burned into the hotel floor, but they seemed to be happening more and more often. It occurred to him that Sam should have been bothered, that he should have woken up screaming for his loss, but he didn't. The nightmares were unpleasant, they left him restless, but there was something superficial about them. He knew it was a dream, even as he fell to his knees, tracing the outline of blackened feathers, his heart screaming in his chest, he knew it was a dream.

And so, every night, as ever, before he went to bed, Sam Winchester prayed.

* * *

 

Sam knew two things.

He knew he was in bed. Sam could quite clearly remember his night time routine, remembered how he'd forgotten his glass of water after he'd gotten under the covers which had seen him rushing across cold floor, barefoot, so he could return to warmth as soon as possible.

And he knew this was not a dream.

He was standing on a dune, looking out over the sea (he never dreamt about the sea), a gentle breeze blew around him but it wasn't cold even though the sky was pink from the sunset. In all his years on earth, Sam had never dreamt something so peaceful.

"You know, you just don't give up do you?" said a voice behind him, and Sam didn't need to turn around to feel the impact. He stilled himself, reacting with little more than a small sigh of relief, lest he embraced the full force of emotion rushing through him and fall to his knees. "But then," Gabriel was at his ear now, "I already knew that."

Sam closed this eyes.

This wasn't a dream.

Gabriel's hand found its way into his and he gripped it tightly, closing his eyes, trying to steady his breath.

Please don't let this be a dream.

He opened his eyes, the sea was still there, the breeze was still warm and when Sam looked down beside him, Gabriel was staring up at him, looking almost annoyed. Sam didn't care, and he didn't give the angel a chance to speak. His free hand found Gabriel's shirt and pulled him close, surging forward he captured his lips.

In the morning Dean almost dropped his coffee, "Whoah Sammy...you ok?"

Sam's hand froze as it reached from the fridge, "uh...yeah...why?"

"Nothing you just...did you slip out and get lucky or something coz you...you got a little something..." Dean gestured to his brother's neck and Sam rushed to the nearest reflective surface. His neck was covered in hickeys that would put Dean's teenage years to shame.

Sam rolled his eyes, and groaned, "son of a bitch."

* * *

 

"You have a soul mark and you never told me?" Dean was grinning, having now discovered the truth and knowing that he had a lifetime of mocking to catch up on.

Sam rolled his eyes, just a few moments ago he'd been lying on the bed, screaming as Castiel healed his foot, how was that preferable to this conversation? It wasn't Cas' fault, though Sam's opinion of that quickly changed when the angel spoke the words he'd seen on Sam's sole. He glared at Cas as though he would kill him, before his eyes were drawn to Dean, begging the universe that he wouldn't remember.

On one hand, it had been a throwaway comment, from a janitor a long, long time ago. On the other, it had been one of the most bizarre cases they'd ever worked, pitting them against a trickster demigod that turned out to be an archangel. Thank God Dean didn't remember. And thank God he was instantly distracted from Sam's potential destiny by the discovery of his own soul mark; a particularly dense smattering of freckles that upon reflection looked decidedly like Enochian.

Specifically Enochian in Cas' hand.

Sam backed out of the room slowly, not wanting to be in the same room, or preferably on the same planet when the dam that had separated Dean and Cas all these years broke. He put as much distance between himself and the motel as he could on foot and then, having found himself alone in a park, he couldn't help but laugh, long and loud, before he found a bench and prayed to Gabriel, telling him everything.

* * *

 

"I think it's a natural thing to miss your home, even more so when that home is heaven," Cas said, answering a question Sam hadn't asked.

Looking over the table at the angel, Sam saw that his eyes were still on the texts before him, skimming over it, helping Sam comb through the bunker's lore books.

"You are my family and this is my home, but I think an angel will always miss heaven on some level. Especially if you feel you can never go back, I imagine if you were to live in exile for long enough you would yearn to experience something of that again."

Sam was silent, staring at Cas from across the table, one eyebrow raised, trying to figure out what the angel was saying or rather why he was saying it.

"For all Gabriel plays at being disinterested, I think he has shown us that he more than any of us truly cares."

The book in Sam's hand fell against the table with a heavy thud, "Cas?"

Still, Castiel didn't raise his eyes from the text, "when an archangel takes an interest in you it leaves a certain resonance on the soul..." finally he looked at Sam, "that and he has decided given my relationship with your brother he has more reason than ever to talk to me." Castiel rolled his eyes, returning to his attention to his book, "he mentioned that you've been complaining about the inequity in your relationship and how you struggle to reciprocate his gestures."

Sam didn't know what to say, he wasn't even sure if there was anything he was supposed to say or what he could possibly say in response to any of that, so he stumbled over his words until Dean hopped into the room, bearing beer. "What are you losers up to?"

Across the table, Sam froze, waiting for Castiel to blow the whole thing and tell Dean everything, not that he didn't want Dean to know, but he'd like Dean to know without the endless jibes that would inevitably follow. One prankster was enough in his life. But Cas didn't say anything, muttering instead about how unhelpful it was to have a library so vast with nothing of use at hand.

* * *

 

He had chosen a church so large it might have been a cathedral. Smaller might have been safer but Sam wanted to look up at vaulted ceilings, he wanted to lose himself in the vastness of this space. The fact that he had broken into the place only detracted from the ambience a little bit.

He moved around, lighting candles wherever he could. The light was dim, hardly enough to be called light, but it would do and actually, considering where he was, it worked quite nicely. He found a thurible so he crumbled in some incense (it hadn't been blessed but it would do) and used a candle to light some charcoal. The light was warm and perfect, the incense wafted into the air and the place seemed holier somehow for it, especially as the whisps of smoke caught the reflections of the candlelight. It was too quiet though and for a moment Sam racked his brains, trying to remember snippets of conversation with Cas. A lightbulb went off in Sam's mind, brighter than any of the candles, and he pulled out his phone, scrolling until he found a choral playlist.

He looked around himself once more, checking that everything was good and then, without any expectation that this would go anywhere he kneeled on a prayer cushion, closed his eyes and brought his hands together. He wasn't sure what to say, in fact, he hadn't even begun to form the words, but Castiel had once said angels could sense longing and Sam couldn't remember wanting something so bad and then there was a familiar flutter of wings and when Sam turned he saw Gabriel standing at the back of the church.

For a moment neither of them moved and then Sam rose and made a gesture, "thought I'd bring you a little slice of heaven," he shrugged as though it was nothing, as though he hadn't spent weeks agonising over how he could possibly give a gift to an archangel, "I know you miss it and it isn't much but-"

"Y'know," Gabriel said, stepping towards him with deliberate slowness, "thought I'd bring you a little slice of heaven is way better than how long have you worked here?"

 

 

 


End file.
